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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25797199">strawberry dress, and a smile restores me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalprose/pseuds/petalprose'>petalprose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Getting Together, Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens), Kisses Bingo, Other, Picnics, Post-Canon, She/Her Pronouns for Aziraphale (Good Omens), She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Strawberry Dress, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i am not kidding this is literally just crowley thinking about aziraphale and going heart-eyes emoji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:53:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25797199</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalprose/pseuds/petalprose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She wakes up every day knowing she has fallen, and that she is glad for where she has landed.</p><p>She will stretch across the covers in the arms of her best friend, or she will pad down the stairs to find her dove placing scones in the oven, or she will have stayed up all night, gently tracing constellations on her wife’s skin, reminiscing on the past and looking forward to the future and feeling grateful for the soft, quiet safety of the now. The present, wherein she no longer has any obligations to Hell and Aziraphale is no longer beholden to Heaven, and they can take photographs together without fear, hold each other without consequence, exist in tandem instead of in periphery.</p><p>--<br/>crowley, aziraphale, a picnic, and a strawberry dress.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Aspec-friendly Good Omens, Kisses Bingo, cross's portfolio</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>strawberry dress, and a smile restores me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>                Crowley is of the firm, unshakeable belief that she is the luckiest living being on Earth. She is, perhaps, the luckiest being in <em>existence</em>, her only competitor being her darling angel, and isn’t that wonderful, that their love brings them such happiness? That sharing their lives with each other brings them such contentment? Crowley wakes up to the knowledge that she is adored, that Aziraphale, her affectionate, lovely, heart-stopping angel, her sweetheart Principality, her beloved—</p><p>                She wakes up every day knowing she has fallen, and that she is glad for where she has landed.</p><p>                She will stretch across the covers in the arms of her best friend, or she will pad down the stairs to find her dove placing scones in the oven, or she will have stayed up all night, gently tracing constellations on her wife’s skin, reminiscing on the past and looking forward to the future and feeling grateful for the soft, quiet safety of the <em>now.</em> The present, wherein she no longer has any obligations to Hell and Aziraphale is no longer beholden to Heaven, and they can take photographs together without fear, hold each other without consequence, exist in tandem instead of in periphery.</p><p>                They can love each other freely, now. They can shout the evidence to the heavens, they can peck each other on the cheek, they can love and be loved in return. Crowley can take Aziraphale’s hand in hers. How joyous, these simple intimacies. How the Serpent of Eden has wound herself around an angel, how the Guardian of the Eastern Gate has taken hold of her in turn.</p><p>                Crowley has an entire folder on her smartphone dedicated to her selfies. She has another dedicated to photos of her with Aziraphale. There is also one filled with pictures of Aziraphale alone. Candid, posed; her angel, smiling and delighted, her angel, flour on her scrunched-up nose. Aziraphale, wolfing down a burger at a McDonald’s, Aziraphale, dabbing at her lips with a table napkin in the Ritz. <em>Aziraphale.</em> Her wife, her love, her best-friend.</p><p>                (Crowley will sometimes have to sit down, lest a—mortifying—wave of giddiness sweep her knees out from under her and leave her a mushy puddle of demon on the floor. They’re <em>together?</em> Her and Aziraphale? Oh, all these years kept at arm’s length, all these years with a line drawn between them—and now they are together! How wonderful is that? Her reputation as a grumpy dark mysterious woman be damned, she is a demon in love! She is a demon <em>free</em> to show her love!)</p><p>                The very first of these photos: Aziraphale, in a strawberry-patterned dress, grinning with shy delight at Crowley from where she is sat on a picnic blanket. There’s an open basket next to her with more contents than it should logically, physically hold; the sky’s got enough cloud cover that there’s shade enough to go around. The wind’s blown through her short, curly hair in such a way that some of it has flown in front of her face, and the joy suffusing her being is clear as day. The strings at the front of the dress caught mid-sway, the pastel-pink of the dress a vision against Aziraphale’s skin…</p><p>                Two years after they helped to avert the apocalypse, angel and demon had had a picnic together, sharing food under the sky and god’s all-seeing gaze.</p><p>                For the rest of her life, for the rest of eternity, Crowley will remember how Aziraphale’s skin had felt against her lips, that first time she had pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Will remember the slow build up to it, how they had both kept looking back at each other’s eyes for reassurance, for a sign of hesitance, how they’d ended up finally locking gazes. Will remember the soft, tentative smile Aziraphale had given her, smaller than her grin for the camera but still filled with so much <em>love</em> Crowley could have burst.</p><p>                “Love the dress, angel,” Crowley had murmured, returning Aziraphale’s smile with her own lopsided one. “Suits you.”</p><p>                (And it truly had. It still does. It will, years and years down the line.)</p><p>                The apocalypse had been a catalyst, whether or not it had come to pass, and once she had suitably recovered from the stress and shock of it Aziraphale had begun experimenting with her attire. The strawberry dress was the latest endeavour, and, beaming, Aziraphale had said, “I chose it with the picnic in mind, my dear.” She looked over Crowley’s expression (which was undoubtedly besotted) and, carefully, continued: “…My dearest.”</p><p>                My dearest, my <em>dearest.</em> Crowley had heard those words from her before (how could she have not? Six-thousand years, a slip of the tongue is all it would take for an endearment to come tripping out) but hearing them then had been something different. Something to savour, something to keep, something so breathtakingly <em>new.</em> A <em>my dearest</em> freely given. The significance of it was not lost on her.</p><p>                In answer, Crowley had turned her hand to twine her fingers with Aziraphale’s. Thrillingly, Aziraphale had let her.</p><p>                Crowley has another photo from that picnic: a picture of her and Aziraphale both, faces close together. Crowley had sidled up closer to Aziraphale to take the shot, gently bumped her shoulder against the angel’s as she held her phone up and stuck out her tongue. Aziraphale had hesitated, and later on she will confess to having considered turning her face at the last second to press her lips to Crowley’s cheek. She had not done so, however, instead choosing to tilt her head so it brushed Crowley’s.</p><p>                Her smile was radiant. The photo had been Crowley’s smartphone’s background photo for over a year, until Aziraphale had gotten pancake batter on her forehead and Crowley snapped a photo of it, crowing all the while.</p><p>                There will be more photo albums, digital or otherwise. There will be more new dresses that make her angel look as though she glows while she wears them. There will be sunrises spent in each other’s arms, there will be sunsets spent gazing at the horizon. There will be feathers to run fingers through, strawberries to pick, books to read and plays to attend and the world to protect.</p><p>                There was an angel, and a demon, who were in love but kept apart. There is an angel, and a demon, who are in love and happily together. There will be an angel, and a demon, loving each other more and more with each passing day,</p><p>                There will be Crowley, and Aziraphale, and their love.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i listened to https://twitter.com/mxmtoon/status/1292257133334061057?s=20 and went feral i hope u have a good day &lt;3!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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